Driving arrangements for material advancing rollers



Jan. 27, 1970 c. WARRINGTON 3,491,964

DRIVING ARRANGEMENTS FOR MATERIAL ADVANCING ROLLERS Filed July 5, 1967 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Jan. 27, 1970 I 'C.WARRINGTON 3, I

DRIVING ARRANGEMENTS FOR MATERIAL ADVAI ICING ROLLERS Filed July 5, 1967 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 United States Patent Oflice 3,491,964 Patented Jan. 27, 1970 3,491,964 DRIVING ARRANGEMENTS FOR MATERIAL ADVANCING ROLLERS Clifford Warrington, Burton-on-Trent, England, assignor to T.M.M. (Research) Limited, Oldham, Lancashire, England, a British company Filed July 3, 1967, Ser. No. 650,958 Claims priority, application Great Britain, July 4, 1966, 29,837/66 Int. Cl. B6511 51/12 US. Cl. 24247.09 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A drive for a textile yarn advancing roller arrangement in which the rollers are mounted on non-parallel rotary axes with the axes lying in a common vertical plane. A drive wheel and two pulleys connected to the rollers are driven by a flexible belt having teeth thereon in engagement with teeth on the drive wheel and the pulleys.

The present invention reates to driving arrangements for material advancing rollers and is particularly concerned with a drive for a textile yarn or filament advancing roller arrangement of the type in which a pair of rollers are arranged with non-parallel rotary axes.

In drawtwisters, for example, two spaced rollers are arranged with their rotary axes inclined to each other and are used to forward filaments which are taken around both rollers to form a series of loops. One of the rollers is driven by a spiral gear from a common driving shaft running along the length of the drawframe at right angles to the roller axes and the other is driven by the yarn. The gears, however, need to be enclosed within an oil-filled gear box and the arrangement is expensive as well as being noisy at high speeds.

An object of the present invention is to provide an improved drive for a roller arrangement of the type specified, which will give a positive drive at high speeds and will be cheaper to produce and less noisy than the previously proposed arrangement.

According to the present invention, there is provided a drive for a textile yarn or filament advancing roller arrangement of the type in which a pair of rollers are arranged with non-parallel rotary axes comprising a toothed pulley or gearwheel connected to each roller, a flexible belt passing around the pulleys or gearwheels, and driving means imparting a drive to the belt to impart a positive drive to each of the two driven toothed pulleys or gearwheels by engagement of teeth on the belt with the teeth on said toothed pulleys or gearwheels.

A drive according to the invention may be applied to the draw rollers or feed rollers of a drawtwister or to feed or draw rollers in a crimping machine. It could also be applied to a roller arrangement of the type specified used for example in heat setting and treating operations or to a roller arrangement of the type specified used for example for advancing wire or strip material.

Some embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of part of a drawtwister showing a side-facing roller arrangement having a drive according to one embodiment of the invention,

FIG. 2 is a side view of part of a drawtwister showing a forward-facing roller arrangement having a drive according to a further embodiment of the invention wherein the chain dotted lines depict a modification for additionally driving an adjacent pair of rollers, and

FIG. 3 is a plan view of the arrangement of FIG. 2.

FIG. 1 shows an arrangement in which a horizontal drive shaft 10 of a drawtwister is fitted with a toothed driving pulley 11 which is one of a number of pulleys which are arranged along the driving shaft one at each yarn processing station. A bottom side-facing filament advancing roller 12 and a top side-facing filament advancing roller 13 constitute a pair of rollers arranged vertically one above the other in front of the drive shaft 10, the bottom roller 12 being mounted for rotation about an axis parallel to the rotary axis of the shaft 10 and the top roller 13 being mounted for rotation about an axis inclined to the axis of the bottom roller 12 and lying in a vertical plane passing through the axis of the bottom roller 12. A shaft supporting the bottom roller 12 is fitted with a driven toothed pulley 14 of a diameter smaller than the diameter of the pulley 11 and the shaft supporting the top roller 13 is fitted with a similar toothed pulley 15. The two pulleys 14 and 15 lie one above the other and in front of the pulley 11 and an endless flexible belt 16 formed with gear teeth on the inner face thereof passes around the three toothed pulleys 11, 14 and 15 and engages the teeth thereon, as shown.

The drive shaft 10 is arranged to be driven by electric motor and in operation the flexible belt 16 takes up the drive from the driving pulley 11 and imparts it to the driven pulleys 14 and 15, the belt 16 flexing as required to take account of the inclination of the pulley 15 for the top roller 13 with respect to the other two pulleys 11 and 14. Filament 17 to be advanced is directed downwardly over the top roller 13 under the bottom roller 12 and then over the top roller 13 continuing in this manner to form a series of spaced loops extending around the two rollers 12 and 13, with the filament 17 being finally withdrawn in a downward direction from the bottom roller 12. The filament 17 is formed as a series of spaced loops on the rollers 12 and 13 by the inclination of the rotary axis of the top roller 13 in respect to the axis of the bottom roller 12.

It will be appreciated however that if desired the bottom roller 12 may also be mounted with its axis inclined to the axis of the drive shaft 10, the belt 16 flexing as required to take account of the angular positioning of the driven pulley 14. It will also be appreciated that the driving arrangement has been described with respect of the feed rollers of a drawtwister but it may also of course be applied to the draw rollers of the machine.

In the embodiment of the invention hereinbefore described the rollers 12 and 13 are arranged to be side facing. It will however be apparent that where it is desired to employ forward-facing feed rollers or draw rollers the flexible belt from the toothed pulley on the drive shaft must be arranged to be turned through a rightangle by passing it, for example. around suitably disposed jockey pulleys.

FIGS. 2 and 3 show part of a yarn processing station of a drawtwister in which the arrangement of the rollers is forward-facing. A bottom filament advancing roller 20 and a top filament advancing roller 21, arranged above and to one side of the roller 20, together form a pair of forward-facing rollers arranged in front of a common drive shaft 22 of the drawtwister, the bottom roller 20 being mounted for rotation about a horizontal axis at right-angles to the rotary axis of the shaft 22 and the top roller 21 being mounted for rotation about an axis inclined to the axis of the bottom roller 20 and lying in the same plane, inclined to the vertical, which also contains the axis of the bottom roller 20.

The shaft supporting the bottom roller 20 is fitted with a toothed pulley 23 and the shaft supporting the top roller 21 with a wide toothed pulley 24. An endless flexible belt 25 formed with gear teeth on the inner face thereof thereon. The toothed pulley 24 is also engaged at the I end nearest the drive shaft 22 by a flexible drive belt 26, also formed with gear teeth on the inner face thereof, the belt 26 passing round the pulley 24, a toothed pulley 29 on the drive shaft and a pair of upper and lower jockey pulleys 27 and 28; the upper pulley 27 engages the top run of the belt 26 and the lower pulley 28 engages the bottom run of the belt 26, both pulleys 27 and 28 serving to turn the run of the belt 26 through a right-angle so as to guide the belt 26 from the plane in which it passes around the pulley 29 to that in which it passes around the pulley 24.

The pulley 24 is formed sufficiently wide to accommodate a second drive belt 30 which drives a similar pair of rollers for a processing station on the other side of the drawtwister. Filament 31 is shown passing around the rollers 20 and 21 in the manner described for the embodiment of FIG. 1.

The chain-dotted lines in FIGS. 2 and 3 show a modification of the last-described embodiment of the invention in which a further pair of yarn advancing rollers 32 and 33 at the adjacent yarn processing station on the same side of the drawtwister are similarly fitted with pulleys 34 and 35 respectively and in which a flexible belt 36 replaces the belt 25 and passes around the toothed pulleys 34 and 35 as well as around the pulleys 23 and 24. By this arrangement the two adjacent pairs of rollers are positively driven by the single belt 36 from the drive shaft 22. Filament 37 is shown passing around the rollers 32 and 33 in a manner similar to that in which it passes around the rollers 20 and 21.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. A drive for a textile yarn or filament advancing roller arrangement comprising a pair of rollers arranged with non-parallel rotary axis, the non-parallel rotary axes of the roller lying in a common vertical plane, a

toothed driving gear-wheel operatively connected to each roller, a toothed pulley connected to each roller, at least one flexible belt passing around said pulleys and gearwheel, and driving .means imparting a drive to vthe belt to impart a positive drive to the gear-wheel and each of the two pulleys by engagement of the teeth on said belt with the teeth on said gear-wheel and said toothed pulleys.

2. A drive according to claim 1 wherein the driving means includes said toothed driving gear-Wheel and a flexible driving belt which passes around said gear-wheel and around one of the said toothed pulleys and is connected to a further pulley mounted to drive one of the rollers.

3. A drive according to claim 2 wherein said gear-wheel is mounted on a driving shaft and wherein the said vertical toothed pulleys on the said other pair of rollers to engagev the teeth thereon so that two or more pairs of rollers are positively driven by the single gear-wheel mounted on the driving shaft.

5. A drive according to claim 3 wherein the driving shaft is horizontally arranged and runs along the length of a textile machine toserve a plurality of yarn processing I stations.

6. A drive according to claim 1 wherein the gear-wheel is mounted on a driving shaft which is substantially parallel to the said planes containing the rotary axes of said rollers.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,849,983 3/1932 Junkers 24247.09 2,930,103 3/1960 Stanley 24247.09 X 2,936,877 5/1960 Adams et al 24247.09

NATHAN L. MINTZ, Primary Examiner 

